Digital sovereignty through sovereign clouds?

The European Union (EU) is striving for digital sovereignty. Understanding technological offerings like sovereign clouds in the context of digital sovereignty can help to identify the support needed for achieving the political goals of the EU. However, research on the opportunities and constraints of sovereign clouds to strengthen digital sovereignty is limited. The objective of this study is to explore the relationship of digital sovereignty and sovereign clouds. Data was collected from semistructured in-depth expert interviews (N=20) and analyzed through the lens of a management perspective, an architectural perspective, and a user perspective. We focus on the following sovereign cloud offerings: 1) T-Systems Sovereign Cloud powered by Google Cloud, 2) Sovereign Cloud Stack for GAIA-X, 3) pCloudBw, 4) European Digital Sovereignty — Amazon Web Services, 5) Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty, 6) Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud, and 7) IBM Sovereign Cloud Capabilities. Our results showed that the purpose of sovereign clouds is perceived very differently: While some providers offer operational sovereignty, others focus on data sovereignty. In this paper, we argue that strengthening digital sovereignty requires a sovereign procurement strategy within companies, more independent production facilities supported by political efforts, and investments in strategic key areas from both political and corporate initiatives.